An afternoon suicide shook shoppers at the Queens Center Mall April 8 when Jamaica woman Mary Lovelace jumped to her death from the mall’s third floor.

Lovelace, 55, landed on teenager Derrik Munoz, who was sitting on a massage chair on the mall’s ground floor, talking with his girlfriend. The 17-year-old Munoz was rushed to Elmhurst Hospital, where he was announced to be in stable condition later that day.

According to eyewitnesses, Lovelace was accompanied by two teenagers when she scaled a glass barrier and, as passersby began to scream, jumped off.

“She told her [companion] to hold her pocketbook and [then] she jumped,” said one shopper, Briteny Jones, who witnessed the suicide. “I almost fainted because I’ve never seen anyone die.”

The suicide shocked shoppers and storeowners, and the many teenagers there on spring break. Several minutes of chaos ensued before Queens Center Mall security could get control of the situation. Within minutes police arrived, cordoned off the area, and closed down that part of the mall.

“Everybody started running and screaming,” after the fall, said Raul Martinez, an employee at the Armani Exchange store who saw the jump. “It was very disturbing,” Martinez said. “Her head was literally all over the floor.”

Queens District Attorney Richard Brown surveyed the scene but his office declined to comment on the incident. (Daniel Bush)

I'm so sorry for everyone who had to witness that my aunt been thru some much and suffered from depression but it's very painful for the the family right now to deal with my heart goes out to the young guy i hope hes OK :*(

I am appalled at how this very traumatic incident, especially to the people who were with her and those that were there, has been brushed off as if it was "nothing worth looking into in depth" by the media. I have a fifteen year old son who could have been there and would have been traumatized for life. I don't understand why this story is being brushed under the table. Somebody didn't feel that her life was worth living, and others stood in shock and wondered what would drive someone to do this, these are unanswered questions that should be explored and answered.

Is it that the ecomomy is such that retailers don't want to give this horrific story more coverage? Why can't we learn more about what happened there, and what measusres does the mall intend to take to make sure that this does not happen again?